How to prepare a business plan
for your business project
How to prepare a business plan
for your business project
What is the business plan?
The business plan is one of the first and necessary steps when starting any business or start-up project, as it includes the goals you seek with the method of reaching, as well as defining your services and products, and developing financing and marketing plans and techniques to accelerate growth.
The business plan may consist of one page, and may extend to forty pages, explaining in detail everything related to your company and its services. Preparing an effective business plan depends mainly on the amount of research and data collection needed to draw up the plan, in addition to making the necessary decisions regarding:
Marketing strategies
Funding requirements
appropriate profitability models
Risks
competitors
From the previous points, it is clear that the business plan is the map that the company will operate according to, until it succeeds and starts reaping big profits. But before that, you will need real and accurate information about both the size of the industry, the size of competitors, products and customers, and you can get all this information through market research.
Types of business plans
Depending on the stage the company has reached and the objective of the plan, action plans can be divided into a number of types:
1. Feasibility studies
A feasibility study is a specific and well-known type of work plan, and it comes in the stages that precede the preparation of an implementation plan for the project. implementing it in practice.
For example, suppose you want to launch a company that specializes in providing educational courses for students of the College of Engineering via an Android application. In this case, you must study the required capital, including the cost of designing the application, photographic equipment, teachers’ wages, etc., and then study the students’ need for these courses. analysis of competing applications; thatFound.
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2. An action plan to launch the projectAfter studying the feasibility of the project, the founders should prepare an executive action plan for the first phase of the project, which must include a clear description of the company, including the company's mission, vision, products and services, and other parts within the company's profile, and it must also include financing plans And expected expenses, and sourcesReliable profits.In fact, the launch plan must include everything in the literal sense, including marketing plans, sales, work environment, and employees, as well as a study of the market and the industry in which the company operates and analysis of competitors, that is, the business plan must draw a clear vision of the path that the company will take in its years The first.
3. Internal work plans
As you work, you will need to make plans at the team level within your company. For example, the product team might develop an action plan for a new product launch. On the other hand, the marketing team may develop an action plan to launch marketing campaigns for this new product, and you will also need plans for financing, employment, market study, customer service, and others, so that these internal plans undertake the implementation of the company's various projects, which work to achieve the company's major goals.
4. External action plans
External plans target investors, banks, and other financing entities, for the purpose of borrowing or attracting investment, as the investor always searches for a business plan that shows him growth and profitability, in order to calculate the return on investment for the amounts he will pay in the company, and this is the purpose of external business plans.
What is the importance of a business plan?
A business plan can be likened to a map or a GPS. A business plan guides you and guides you through your work. Here are some of the main benefits of having a business plan:
Setting goals and standards
If you look carefully at the factors that helped successful people achieve their successes, you will notice that the most important of them is setting smart and clear goals, as clear goals motivate you and help you track your progress and achievements, which is what the business plan provides you with, by setting future goals and adjusting them through KPIs. .
Help you make the right decisions
As a manager of a business, you will be required to make critical decisions at many ups and downs, and this is where a business plan comes in to guide you. As for without a clear plan of action, it will flop left and right, and will make random decisions.
Attracting partners and financiers
Put yourself in the shoes of the person you want to partner with to fund your project. Will you be convinced of any business or project idea without a clear and specific business plan? The logical answer is “No”, hence the importance of developing a business plan if you are looking to conclude partnerships with other parties or obtain financing or a financial loan for your project.
Elements of the main action plan
What you write in the plan depends very much on the audience and the questions they want answers to, or the problems they seek to solve. Here are the most important elements that a business plan should include:
1. Executive summary
Regardless of the formula of the business plan followed, the executive summary is usually the first thing written in the business plan, and it is a section that summarizes to the reader what the company is, its location, directions and plans to reach its goals, and thus you can attract the attention of investors.
Although this section appears at the beginning of the business plan, it can be written at the end, as it is a summary of the entire business plan. When you reach the end of the plan, the threads and points will come together in your mind, which makes you write in a distinct and clear way for the reader, and the executive summary must include the following:
The company’s mission and vision: It provides an answer to the question “Why is your company in the market?” All of your company's activities must stem from this message.
Company information: A brief sentence about the company's history, which must include the date and location of the company, in addition to the names of the founders and the number of employees.
Products and Services: Briefly describe the services and products that your company provides to its customers.
Financial information: If your company is seeking financing, at this point you can indicate existing investors.
Future projections: Briefly describe the expectations of the company's growth and profits over a certain period of time, and according to what you have prepared in the plan in the other sections.
2. Company description
The description of the company isn't just telling people that we "sell things." This section is an overview of the company, including its structure, owners, and management, as well as a brief history.
The description also includes the markets in which the company is located and the markets in which it plans to enter. The purpose of the description of the company is for the reader to understand the objectives of the company and how it intends to achieve them. After completing this section, the reader must clearly understand the nature of the company's business, its structure, objectives, advantages and strengths.
3. Work environment analysis
Planning for an emerging company or project is a process that does not stop at preparing a business plan for it, as a clear and effective system for measuring the company's performance must be put in place to ensure that things are moving in the right direction. The business plan must include the tools and techniques necessary to periodically evaluate the company's performance compared to other companies.
The work environment includes the external and internal factors that affect the company's work. The internal factors include the company's culture, organizational structure, and management methods adopted by the company. As for external factors, they may include social activities, market changes, and developments that affect customer behavior, as well as innovations and new technologies that may help or affect the company's profits or productivity.
4. Industry
You must have the necessary information about the industry in which you work when preparing a business plan for your company or your emerging project. This information will help you to develop the work mechanism to a large extent, and keep abreast of any developments in the industry that may affect positively or negatively on the company. Here are 4 steps to prepare a section Industry in business plan:
An introduction to the industry, its areas of deployment, and a simple history of this spread.
Review the most important developments and growth patterns that occurred in the industry.
The most important factors affecting the industry, such as: political conditions and government support for some services.
Your company's current position in the industry, and how you plan to advance taking advantage of the advantages and factors you've identified in the industry.
5. Market analysis
The market analysis section should include a summary of the market you focus on, the most important facts and information that may help you in marketing and production methods, and the most important things that this section should include:
Description of the industry, market, and growth opportunities.
A description of the target audience with accurate classifications for it, and a clear file for each classification.
market size and current status; Is it increasing or decreasing? and expectations of its continuation or cessation.
The pricing system used in the company and its comparison with the pricing systems of competitors, mentioning the advantages of the system followed by your company.
6. Competitor analysis
The business plan should include a section on competitors, in which you explain your current position compared to them. It is difficult to determine the performance of your company if you do not know the size and performance of competitors. After gathering the necessary information from the market analysis, you can write this section in several steps:
A list of competitors that includes: the name and location of each competitor, the products it offers, and the applicable pricing system.
The most important strengths and weaknesses of each competitor.
Analyze your company's strengths and weaknesses, and focus on how to reduce weaknesses and increase strengths.
A description of your company's role in the market, and how it can compete for a large market share based on clear information and numbers.
7. Marketing plan
The marketing plan is one of the most important sections that must be included in the business plan, and this section includes:
Market penetration methods, which explain the company's plans to enter this market.
Determining growth strategies, by introducing products and services to new markets and users.
Providing alternatives and new ways to distribute products or services, such as hiring sales representatives or opening new stores.
Developing tight strategies to communicate with potential customers.
8. Operations and management plan
The operations plan is the engine that runs the wheel of the company, and without the operations plan, none of the above can be implemented. This section is for the work team and management; It includes the details and roles that each member of the team will perform, and through which any member of the team can learn about his role and duties.
It also includes the job hierarchy of each person in the company and the structure followed, so that the officials and their administrative roles are known, which makes matters clear to every employee in the event that he encounters any problem, so that he can refer to the competent official.
9. Financial statements
It is necessary that the financial data be written in the business plan of the business, and it includes various data such as: income, financial liquidity, profit system, pricing systems, opportunities to increase sales, and expenses made by the company. The most important thing that this section should include is the future expectations of the company's financial conditions, supported by the necessary data and information.
How to write a successful business plan?
We've come to the practical side, here are the steps you can take to write an effective business plan:
Set the type of action plan
The first step that you should think about is determining the type of business plan you need, as it is the basis on which you will build all your next steps, including the elements that the plan will contain. Determine whether you need a feasibility study or a business plan to launch a new project, or something else?
Determine the elements to be available in the plan
Now that you know the type of business plan, make a list of the elements that should be included in the plan. For example, if your plan is to launch a new project, it should include elements of a company profile, financing plan, market studies, and others.
The use of specialists
After determining the required elements, you will need a specialized expert who is able to develop a distinct business plan for your project, so that you can ensure that the required elements are met and formulated in accordance with the rules, and to reach one of these specialists, you can use one of the business plan services that they provide on the Fiverr platform, the largest Arab market for buying and selling Microservices.
Browse the available services, and read all the information they contain, including:
Description of the service: It is a description of what the specialist will provide you with within the service, including the volume, method of work, and other details of the service.
Service Card: Through it, you can learn about a set of statistics related to the service, such as the average response speed and the number of requests being executed, which may be of interest to you if you need urgent service, in addition to the service price and delivery time.
Evaluations: Evaluations will give you a clear idea of the level of service provided by the specialist, which will avoid you hesitation and doubt in taking the step of purchasing the service.
After selecting and filtering services, communicate with the providers of those services and discuss with them the details you need, then choose the seller that you see as the most efficient among them, and follow up with him the stages of work until receiving the full service, and in the last stage, you will be able to evaluate the service for future buyers.
Is it possible to rely on a ready-made business plan template?
Business plan templates are ready-made templates that companies can fill out and take advantage of to speed up the plan preparation process. They include the elements of a business plan with directions for the topics that should be discussed in each element. Let's take market research as an example, the business plan template will lay out in your hands the areas that you should include in your plan, such as:
target market segments
Market trends
market needs
competitors and their market shares
The importance of these points is that they help you know the aspects that should be included in your plan, which will save you a lot of trouble in preparing a business plan from scratch. However, business plan templates cannot be completely relied upon, as each business plan must be tailored to the project and its needs, as the templates are only for inspiration and guidance.
In conclusion, give great importance to the professional aspect of the business plan, as it is your map to reach your goals and achieve your ambitions. Therefore, avoid being easy in preparing it, so that the matter does not reflect negatively on you in the future.
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